The Viloria Ogopogo Photographs, Okanagan Lake

Okanagan Lake has its legend. Ogopogo, also known as n̓x̌ax̌aitkʷ. MonsterQuest would call it "the world's most documented lake creature."

In the summer of 2008, Sean Viloria was a Kelowna artist and photographer. His girlfriend was Jessica Weagers. Within eight days, the two of them would see something in the lake twice.

August 15, 2008. Highway 97, between Peachland and Summerland. About a third of the way out into the lake, something broke the surface. Viloria described "black cresting humps that were coming in and out of the water." He reached for his digital camera. By his account, he accidentally switched it off. He came away with one image, of something dark, nearly submerged. Another telling has Weagers noticing it first, and the camera simply dying.

August 23, 2008. A little further south. Viloria had pulled his car over to look at a Highway 97 widening project. Weagers spotted another disturbance. This time the camera worked. Viloria described "thrashing, big movement in the water." He took 11 photographs of an object surfacing near a boat. One frame appears to show a tail or neck like object. Others seem to show a back and a head. Some may show bony ridges, or appendages. Using the boat for scale, Viloria put its length at 18 to 20 feet. Its colour seemed to shift from black to red.

Viloria held the story back. He wanted MonsterQuest to break it first. The History series aired "Lake Demons" on April 15, 2009, with the photos included. Its team found no evidence of tampering. On June 6, 2009, Viloria released stills to Loren Coleman's Cryptomundo. The same day, the Kelowna Daily Courier ran J. P. Squire's article "Ogopogo spotted in lake." Only three or four of the 11 frames have ever been shown.

"Something is most definitely there, something unknown to science that has made its home in Okanagan Lake," Viloria said. He denied any doctoring. Yet he was careful. He did not claim to have photographed Ogopogo. Only something physical. Something moving.

The Courier reported that Arlene Gaal, the Kelowna Ogopogo historian, John Kirk of the BC Scientific Cryptozoology Club and Toronto biologist Dr. Edward Bousfield could not explain the images. A biologist quoted by the paper suggested the animal could be at least 40 feet long. A provincial fisheries biologist said such an animal in the lake would be unusual. The colour change prompted talk of pollution, or of more than one animal.

Others saw something ordinary. Commenters on Cryptomundo, one of them a self-described Kelowna resident, argued the pictures showed a capsized windsurfer, its coloured sail explaining the shift from black to red. Another noted that no submerged body appeared large enough to hold up a neck of that length. No one has shown the photos to be faked.

No official body ever examined the case. Most of the frames remain unreleased. The Viloria photographs sit in the long Okanagan Lake record, beside the 1980 Kelowna beach sighting and the 1989 Bear Creek report. Two sightings. Eight days apart. Still argued over.